LISC has invested deeply in the health and wellbeing of people in the places where we work for 40 years. But we’re upping the ante. President and CEO Maurice Jones calls partners to join us in upending health disparities through tailored investments in communities, and designing a plan to assess the health outcomes of our broad work in economic dev [...]

For decades, the residents of Flint, Michigan have endured high rates of crime alongside devastating unemployment, depopulation and blight—and recently, a severe water crisis on top of that. But the energy and commitment of neighbors, business people and key anchor institutions are transforming the historic University Avenue corridor. Crime there, in turn, has plummeted. A Department of Justice community safety grant, with training and technical assistance from LISC, has ramped up those efforts and is helping make the corridor a model of problem-solving, and optimism, for all of Flint.

Through the Pay for Success model, LISC is working with the National Kidney Foundation of Michigan to scale an evidence-based lifestyle change program to reduce the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes. One of three LISC Pay For Success projects, the goals of the Michigan program are potentially game-changing: find effective healthcare interventions that reduce short- and long-term healthcare costs at the same time.

After years of guiding charter school facilities development, LISC has bottled its knowledge in a new platform: SchoolBuild: From Idea to Construction. SchoolBuild is an essential online resource to support charter school leaders as they dig into the process of creating a bricks-and-mortar facility, with advice on everything from cost projections to financing options and the many other steps required to bring a new school to life.

Apart from transit itself, it takes a constellation of assets like affordable housing, thriving businesses, community space, arts and culture to make a transit neighborhood tick. This year's Rail~Volution conference in Denver, CO, which brings together transit and development practitioners from across the U.S., will highlight what it takes to make TOD inclusive. So that transit neighborhoods benefit all residents, new and old. The photo series below shows some of the facets of LISC's equitable TOD work across the country.

In a roundtable discussion for Shelterforce, Julia Ryan, director of LISC’s safety and health programs, explained our multi-pronged approach to nurturing collaboration among law enforcement, residents and community developers. The upshot is neighborhoods with lower crime, less blight and greater resident confidence in police.